by J. K. Barber
Branden watched them both, worry heavy on his brow. At that moment, he looked very old indeed, his family’s future teetering on edge. His hands tightened around the blacksmith’s hammer at his belt. None of them spoke or moved from their seats for some time, their worried minds overpowering their grumbling stomachs. The light slowly faded from the small glass window, leaving it black. The girls eventually rose and went to their tiny bedroom. Branden continued his vigil of the dying coals.
Chapter 2
Jared crouched, removing his soft leather gloves and placing a bare hand to the soft loam of the forest floor. He paused for a moment, pressing his hand harder into the ground and letting the dark fertile soil rise between his outspread fingers. He sighed lowly. Had someone been close at hand, they would have seen the ghost of a smile pass quickly across his tanned face. As it was, he was alone in this part of the forest. There was not another person within miles of where he crouched, watching the sunlight that filtered down through the high canopy of the old forest play across his skin.
He shook his head, snapping out of his brief reverie and returning to the matter at hand. He lifted his gaze from the ground and looked about him visibly confirming that he was alone. Then, he closed his eyes and brought his mind into focus. His breathing slowed and his feet settled into a more comfortable position, as he squatted low to the earth. His senses sharpened, and he became more aware of his body. He listened closely to his heartbeat, following the path of blood outward from his chest to his limbs, his fingers, and finally to the surface of his skin. He felt the rough cotton of his shirt and breeches, as they slid across his skin with each slow breath, and the soft leather of the boots that encased his feet, resisting calf muscles that continuously adjusted to keep his balance. All of these he could feel against his naked skin. He paused briefly and then pushed his perceptions beyond his person.
His awareness expanded farther to encompass that which was slightly outside himself. The leather jerkin that covered his chest, sleeveless to allow him greater freedom of movement, tightened and loosened with each slow breath; breath he now heard instead of felt. The belts that hung at his waist and looped over his shoulders to harness his sword, bow and quiver rubbed gently across his jerkin. Each of these items was as familiar to him as his own hand or the feel of his shoulder length hair brushing across the back of his neck.
After the many hours of running trail in the woods and across the plains of the Kingdom, Jared barely noticed these nuances of his gear. It was as though these pieces of leather and metal were a part of him. Normally, the only time he was conscious of their existence was when they were apart from him, on those rare nights that he slept in an inn or tavern, when he was cut off from the sky overhead by a shell of roofing beams and wooden shingles. Now, as he honed his perceptions of himself and the world around him, he was acutely aware of all that he wore and carried.
Taking a deep breath Jared pushed his senses even further. The world brightened, engulfing the woodsman in a brilliant waterfall of colors, scents and sounds. His senses reached beyond his flesh, and a sharp intake of air filled his lungs. No matter how many times he went beyond himself like this, he never failed to be awestruck by the magnificence of the forest. The pale light that fell through the leaves now brightened to an almost glaring intensity, and Jared was forced to squint while his eyes adjusted. As his vision gradually accepted the enhanced perception, he marveled at the deep greens of the leaves, the dark rich brown of the tree bark and the myriad other colors of the Mother’s greatest creation: the vibrant wild world that existed outside the influence of man and his walled cities of cut wood and quarried stone. The odors that filled his nose now were beyond the reach of any human to smell. The fertile soil beneath his feet, rich with humus and the detritus of thousands of leaves, assaulted his nose, but they passed as his body adjusted to these new sensations.
He again paused momentarily, briefly saddened that the overwhelming beauty of the forest that he saw now was denied to the knowledge of men because they lacked the ability to see it as he did. His perceptions were a gift from the Great Mother and the animals of the forest. He often considered beasts his kin, more so than the other two legged creatures, who were his brothers and sisters. They were his kind by an accident of birth. Only Sirus had been different.
Jared mentally set his shoulders straight. Now was no time to be wandering back down the paths of time. What was gone was gone, and no amount of reminiscence would change that. He needed to concentrate on the task at hand, especially at this crucial juncture.
He had seen other tracks besides those of his two-footed prey. The paw prints of his true kin were all over this area, visible to those who took the time to see. Jared let his perceptions leave his body, quickly looking around him again to confirm that he was still alone. Should he be disturbed or Great Mother forbid attacked, while in his meditations, the results for him would be disastrous. Also, the effect on those he now sought with his wandering mind could be equally tragic.
Working hard to concentrate on his quarry and not be distracted by the sights, sounds and smells that were the alluring siren call of the forest, Jared cast about in an ever widening circle for his brothers and sisters that roamed the woods here. Stretching his senses, he left his crouching body farther behind in his hunt. He knew the more he strayed, the harder it would be to return his mind to his flesh, but the need was great and Jared knew his limits. His mentor had insisted on that much, at least. Knowledge of what you could not do was sometimes as important as knowledge of what you could.
Beginning to approach what Jared knew was a safe distance, he began to despair that he was too far from the minds he wished to contact, that he would have to travel further to find them, or worse be unable to find them at all. Just as he was about to return his perceptions to his body, left unguarded and crouching low to the leaves of the forest floor, Jared caught a flash out of the corner of his mind’s eye. It was like the light of the moon caught momentarily by the golden eyes of a wolf and reflected back through the night. Jared rushed towards the source, hurrying because he had left his body senseless in the forest for too long already. Jared’s perceptions remained true, as he sensed the lupine mind roaming the forest. He also felt the presence of three other wolves closely following the mind he had originally sensed.
Jared hesitated. He could not be too hasty; he had to approach the wolf’s mind slowly, almost slipping up on it sideways. He could not just insert his presence into the wolf’s consciousness; to do so would risk the wolf panicking and, in his fear, doing damage both to itself and Jared.
Jared had heard stories from his mentor of those with his gifts simply jumping into the unsuspecting mind of an animal, like a cat pouncing on a mouse. The animal, naturally resisting the invasion, had thrashed about in an attempt to throw off what it perceived as an attack. The end result left the mind of the animal destroyed, little more than a drooling husk, mocking the life it once had. The one who had sought to connect minds with the animal was left a feral creature. Reduced to a barely controllable animal, his mind would be so wounded by the struggle that he would be little more than a beast himself for the rest of his life. He’d be beyond the capacity to even speak anymore, and those that did not immediately run off into the wilderness were sometimes cared for by others, becoming in essence pets to those they once called friends.
Jared remembered his teachings and the danger. He approached the wolf’s mind and slowly slipped his consciousness into that of the animal. The wolf’s head shot up, the fur on the back of his neck bristling and his lips pulling back from his glistening white teeth. He sensed danger and searched around for its source. The three other wolves, catching the scent of fear from their companion, also assumed defensive stances. A low chorus of growls echoed through the forest.
Hush, Jared thought. I mean no harm. I am friend. Jared projected thoughts in word pictures: a wolf crouching before its alpha, chin touching the ground, ears pulled back in submission. Then, he added the
image of a pack running together in the forest, not on a hunt, but simply for the joy of running together.
The wolves stopped growling, and the lupine Jared had contacted slightly turned his head in an almost human gesture of confusion. The image of a wolf sniffing around the forest floor for a scent it didn’t recognize came into Jared’s mind.
The woodsman brought an image into his consciousness of a man superimposed over that of a wolf, standing amongst a larger pack and projected it through his link to the canine. The wolf harrumphed as though a strange smell had invaded his nostrils, but he accepted the contact and waited with his ears forward, as though straining to hear something far away.
Jared collected his thoughts and spoke in carefully prepared word-images of a wolf killing another member of its pack, and then the pack hunting down the rogue. I hunt a brother, Jared inwardly flinched at the word but accepted it as something that was beyond his ability to otherwise translate to the wolf he had contacted. He killed pack member and is not-pack now. I hunt so that not-pack does not kill another pack. Jared waited, hoping that the wolf would understand what it was that he had tried to convey.
Not-pack must be hunted, the wolf sent back. An image of a lone wolf being chased and brought down by a pack of wolves appeared in Jared’s mind’s eye. Jared heaved a sigh of relief. The wolf would help.
Jared sent a picture of a wolf sniffing around the tracks of a deer, while a larger wolf beside it pushed the smaller one’s nose in the right direction to follow the quarry. The nudge caused the smaller wolf’s nose to pass over another part of the trail, allowing it to smell a scent it had not found before. I need your help leader, Jared mentally spoke, realizing that the wolf he had contacted was the alpha of the small pack he had found. Help me find right scent of not-pack to protect pack.
The alpha agreed, and Jared carefully slipped out of the mind of the wolf, before rushing back to his body. He blinked rapidly as he adjusted once again to having flesh and blood and bone. Shifting his legs to ease the aching muscles of his calves and thighs, Jared took a handful of the dirt from the boot track over which he had been crouching all along. His quarry had either never run trail before or was unconcerned about being followed. There were several exposed roots nearby that the murderer could have used to walk on for short distances to help obscure his trail. But, he had not, which brought two possibilities to Jared’s thoughts: either the man didn’t know he was being followed or didn’t care.
After talking to the constable in Binford’s Bluff, Jared conceded that either might be true. He had received only a cursory description of the murderer from the lawman. “Tall, easily over six feet and burly,” he had said. “The only witness to see him fleeing said that he had dark hair and a mustache, maybe a full beard. She said it was dark and the man was very clearly trying to cover his face.”
These words echoed in Jared’s head as he brought the handful of earth up to his nose. The man who had been killed was similar in size but more portly than his killer, and much older. The victim’s hair was a salt and pepper, leaning heavily away from the pepper.
Other tidbits about the murder filtered through Jared’s consciousness, as he sifted through the scents contained in the small pile of soil in his hand. Using the enhanced sense of smell he had borrowed, for there really was no other word for it, from the alpha wolf, Jared quickly recognized and discarded the normal smells of the forest floor. The smell of earth, decaying leaves and recent rain were swiftly ignored. He was looking for something out of the ordinary, some scent that shouldn’t be here, where usually only animals tread.
He caught the smell of deer spoor and smiled, a wolfish grin crawling across his lips as his head filled with images of the hunt. He remembered running across the plains with the pack, the wind whistling through his ears and fur as they ran down their prey. The first yelp of pain from the deer as his teeth ripped into the animal’s haunch, the hot sweet rush of blood as it first gushed into his mouth, and the taste of fear and triumph all infused his senses.
Jared shook his head, separating his thoughts from those of the wolf a little more. These were not his memories, and he must remember that if he was to remain himself. The woodsman distracted himself further by running through the list of facts he had received, both from the constable and his own inspection of the murder scene. The old man had not been robbed.
The many strange items and antiques in his house near the edge of town had been untouched. The old man had been a recluse of sorts and apparently some type of scholar, only venturing out when he needed food and other supplies. Neighbors had described him as a quiet man, keeping to himself and his books. His house had been filled with books of all shapes and sizes that overflowed the shelves, lining the walls of the victim’s living room. Some were so old that Jared had been afraid to touch them, lest he damage their fragile pages. Others seemed to be written by the scholar himself. Unfortunately, the books that the old man had penned were written in a shorthand that Jared did not know, nor did the constable. Any clues that may have been in the old man’s works, as to why he was killed, were lost to Jared.
He returned his thoughts to the forest in which he now crouched. A day earlier, Jared had noticed a place beside a tree where the murderer had stopped; the tracks had been odd. The heel and toe were unusually deep, as though the man had rocked back and forth several times while leaning against the trunk. Also, the hole in the left boot track where the ball of the foot rested had disappeared afterwards. The man had stopped to change footwear, clearly thinking he had lost any pursuers. The old boots could have easily been disposed of, thrown into a nearby stream. Maybe, the killer had thought to throw off anyone, who had followed him using dogs, by exchanging his boots for the ones he had looted off the scholar’s corpse. Maybe the killer had simply wanted a pair of new boots and had killed the old man for them. But, it made no sense to steal a pair of boots and then leave behind enough gold crowns worth of antiques to buy ten more pairs.
Again, the voice of the constable sounded in Jared’s memory. “No one has ever seen this man before. He must have arrived after dark because no one remembered him coming into town. He never went to the tavern. I asked the innkeeper if he had seen anyone new, but he hadn’t.” Not much to go on there, Jared thought. An older woman, whose eye sight was questionable at best, was the only witness.
“I remember,” the old woman had said. “Tall fella, rugged look about him. Dirty all over. Dirty shirt, dirty hair, dirty face. His boots caked in mud. People should take better care of themselves if’n ya ask me.”
None of it had been of any use, as far as the constable was concerned. It had rained hard the day before the murder. Anyone on the road at that time would have been covered almost head to toe with mud. Jared remembered heading to the inn himself to take a hot bath before supper. He had been just about to turn in for the night, when word of the killing had reached the tavern.
Having done some work in years past collecting bounties and his purse being a little light, Jared spoke with the constable. The lawman was hesitant at first to trust a man, who had just arrived in town, but once Jared examined the scene and reported his observations to the constable, the man was more than happy for the help.
“I don’t have anyone to spare to chase this man down,” the lawman had said. “One of my deputies is laid up sick, and the other one got called to his daddy’s farm for planting season. Any help you could give me would be greatly appreciated. Standard fee of twenty gold crowns for bringing him back. I’ll send word to the garrison to the northeast, and if they want to add anything to the reward it should be here by the time you get back.”
Jared had agreed and left the next day. Already tired from weeks of traveling, he had allowed himself one decent night’s sleep; the murderer did not sound much like a woodsman, and Jared was confident of the direction that he had headed. The nearest town was a little over five days away. He would probably show up there.
Three days later here Jared now sat, following the t
racks of a man he had never seen before, had only a vague description of and holding a handful of dirt up to his nose trying to find something unusual. He had found and discarded over a dozen scents, none of which were out of place. Dirt, leaves, spoor, leather, preserving oil...
And then he had it. Jared thought back on the old woman’s description of the man, smiling to himself. He dropped the dirt from his hand and brushed his hands together before replacing his gloves.
Thank you, Alpha, Jared sent to the wolf. A word-image of a wolf finding a new scent and racing off after it was projected from the woodsman’s mind to that of the lupine. Just before he broke the connection and returned his senses to normal, Jared also sent a picture of a large deer, fat off the spring’s newborn leaves that were widespread in the forest this time of year. He relayed a picture of the clearing, where he had found the deer’s droppings and tracks. Hunt well and run swift, brother.
Jared rose and stretched out his cramping legs before setting off at a loping jog through the forest. The nearest town in this direction was the small mining village of Mica, two days to the north, two days if he pushed himself and arrived tired. Jared thought again about the murderer’s description and slowed his pace; he would be useless, if he arrived in Mica exhausted. Not the best shape to be in when confronting a killer, who had slain another man by snapping his neck with his bare hands. Hopefully, the man would stop for a night at the inn, and Jared would be able to call on the local law for some help. Then Jared remembered the last time he was in Mica and doubted he would receive any help from the local constable. If he remembered correctly, the man was tied firmly to the purse strings of the owner of the mine. The lawman only paid attention to what he was told to watch.
